South Asia Citizens Web

The principle of the secular state is one of the core principles of the Indian Constitution. This means that an individual has the right to choose his/her religion but the government should always keep its distance from religious affairs.

The exchange of banters between the outgoing veteran Congress MP Renuka Chaudhury and India’s Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu in the Rajya Sabha, during the ceremony to bid farewell to her and other retiring MPs , has taken an ugly turn. In her farewell speech Renuka Chaudhury while addressing Naidu (who is also the Rajya Sabha Chairman), in a self-deprecating humorous vein poked fun at her own girth saying: “Sir, many people worry about my weight, but in this job (of politics), you need to throw your weight around.” To this, Naidu replied: “…reduce your weight and make efforts to increase the weight of your party.” Now, if this banter between the two – both of whom having known each other for many years despite their political differences – took place in the private surroundings of a lunch or dinner party in the capital, where such slanging jests are quite common, it would have been laughed off, and ignored by the media.

But once such a badinage is transported to the public arena of Parliament, or political rallies, it assumes a different dimension, particularly from the viewpoint of women, who quite understandably feel insulted by the misogynist comments and anti-women slurs made by ministers, MPs, political leaders (irrespective of their ideological beliefs) on the floors of the Lok Sabha, as well as in mass meetings.

The construction of a new high-speed railway line in India is scheduled to officially get underway this year, connecting the commercial capital of Mumbai and the industrial city of Ahmedabad in the western part of the country. The project to build the line fashioned after Japan’s shinkansen system is a product of an agreement between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, in their December 2015 summit.

Yet anxiety is already rising due to soaring costs brought about by haphazard policies of the Indian government, leading both the Japanese government and Japanese firms to start getting bogged down.

Madeeha Gauhar’s passing is not just the end of what will probably be considered the golden age of Pakistani theatre, it is a great loss for progressive, pro-peace voices in this country.

The renewed push to decriminalise homosexuality – more than four years after the Supreme Court judgment upholding Section 377 of Indian Penal Code – raises hopes of a positive outcome. In 2009, Delhi high court had ruled in favour of the personal choices and individual liberties of homosexual persons, but it proved to be short-lived with the Supreme Court upholding Section 377 in 2013.